Monday, October 8, 2012

Book 00036: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur GoldenTitle:- Memoirs of a Geisha

First Publication:- 23 September 1997 by Alfred A. KnopfTrivia:
- A movie adaptation of the novel of the same name, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and directed by Rob Marshall was released in the United States on December 9, 2005.
- Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel after he listed her in the acknowledgement despite their anonymity agreement.

Awards:
- American Booksellers Book of the Year (ABBY) Award
- Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
- New York Times Notable Books of the Year
- Waterstones top 25 books of the last 25 years (2007, No 7)
- BBC's Big Read (Best loved novel, 2003, No 62)
- New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 1997)
- 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 Edition)
- Whitcoulls top 100, 2008 (27)
- LOST Book Club Award

I was greatly intrigued by this book as many of my acquaintances kept on talking on how they liked it. So when I had a chance I never hesitated to buy the book. As I started reading the book I immediately developed a liking to it. It seems that I am having an intimate conversation with Sayuri herself and I just delved into the story of her life the left me mesmerized...

"According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha" does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means "artisan" or "artist." To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties, and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha.This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous.

The result is a novel with the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage (virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a geisha is more analogous to a Western "trophy wife" than to a prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple, elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough) glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumor spread by a rival "as cruel as a spider."

Golden's web is finely woven, but his book has a serious flaw: the geisha's true romance rings hollow--the love of her life is a symbol, not a character. Her villainous geisha nemesis is sharply drawn, but she would be more so if we got a deeper peek into the cause of her motiveless malignity--the plight all geisha share. Still, Golden has won the triple crown of fiction: he has created a plausible female protagonist in a vivid, now-vanished world, and he gloriously captures Japanese culture by expressing his thoughts in authentic Eastern metaphors."

After reading this would you not delve into the world of Geisha as well?